Tata Croma launches own brand of LCD and LED TVs

NEW DELHI: In tune with its plan to achieve 20 per cent sales from its own branded products, Tata group company Infiniti Retail, which runs Croma stores in India, today launched its own LCD and LED TVs.

"We have seen a great demand for high-end TVs in our stores, keeping this in mind the company has decided to offer LCD and LED TVs to consumers through our stores," Infiniti Retail MD and CEO, Ajit Joshi, told PTI.

Initially, the company has launched four products -- two LCDs and two LEDs -- under the category and seeing the response, it would increase the product portfolio, Joshi said.

He said, according to the information available the total market for such products in the country is around Rs 6,500 crore and is growing rapidly while declining to give sales projections from the sale of flat screen TVs.

"We are taking baby steps in the direction. Our stores across the country will sell these products, which would be produced through third party manufacturers," Joshi said.

Infiniti has started selling products under its own label around one and half years back, and now it has over 100 consumer electronic products under its portfolio ranging from accessories like head phones, pen-drives to high-end products like LCD and plasma screen TVs.

"Currently, private labels products contribute only a negligible amount to the over all revenue of the company but our goal is to take our private label business to a stage where they should contribute around 20 per cent of over all revenue," Joshi said.

Infiniti reported a sale of around Rs 1,000 crore in 2009-10 fiscal and the company is hoping to double its turnover in the current fiscal.

"Last fiscal, we have grown more than 50 per cent and in the current fiscal, we are hopeful of registering 100 per cent growth," he said.

"We take full responsibility of the service and performance of these featured high definition picture technology. This launch will raise our pedestal as electronic retailers since we are India's only retailer to launch our own range of LCD and LED TVs," Joshi said.

Croma has also announced a launch offer of an additional 5 per cent off on any Croma private label products for any customer showing the Croma LCD/LED invoice.

Some of Croma's products are a wide range of SKUs that have hit the shelf such as wine coolers, split air- conditioners, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, blenders, kettles, toasters, mini-massagers, blender choppers, laptops, IT accessories and a host of products that cut across various product categories.

'Croma' branded products are available at all the Croma stores pan-India.

Croma, a national chain of mega-stores of consumer electronics and durables, is owned by Infiniti Retail, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons.

Presently, there are a total of 42 Croma plus 5 Croma Zip stores in the country.

Infiniti Retail, had, earlier, entered into a technical and sourcing agreement with Australian retail giant, Woolworths, whereby the former will own and run the retail operations in India, while Woolworths will provide technical support and strategic sourcing facilities from its global network.